Saturday, May 1, 2010

We last saw the Druff family in Druff Estate – Introduction & Backstory. Misty had been newly resurrected for the second time by Bud Wieser, and had been reunited with her husband and children in their new house. Life for the family fairly quickly settled into an ordinary routine and they began to put their paranormal misadventures behind them as they sought to become a normal family. Dan had adopted Luey from Crystal Ball, the mother of his other children, and brought him home for his sons. He began working with him to teach him the tricks he’d need for his career.

Misty worked on her Creativity skills, and managed to finish maxing out all of her skills in the process.

Nathan also worked on his skill, primarily by playing chess to increase his Logic. It earned him a membership to the Games lot, and the representative found him to issue the invitation just as he was going to shower after having been in the pool.

Dan and Luey worked their jobs, with both getting chance cards. Luey came home with a promotion early in the week.

Misty helped Nathan with his homework after school, while Neville chatted with a friend he’d brought home with him.

Later that evening, Misty helped Neville get his homework done, and Nathan worked some more with Luey to teach him the new skills he needed now since his promotion. At some point during the day, Arlina Pennington had dropped by for a visit, and she was busy watching a game on TV while the family went about their own tasks.

Dan worked on teaching Norris how to walk, though after they’d finished, instead of taking him up and settling him in his crib to sleep, he left the exhausted toddler to crawl into Luey’s bed to take a nap instead.

The elderly butler generally did a fair job of taking care of things around the house, but was often to be found standing in the foyer with a confused look on his face as he tried to remember what it was he was going to do next.

Meanwhile, Misty had gotten herself another job in her preferred field, and she and Dan both had opportunities related to their hobbies crop up while at work.

Neville was proving to be a fairly social little boy, frequently inviting friends home from school with him. One day he invited Thomas Shi over.

While he was talking and playing with Thomas out front, Misty came home with a promotion and a friend of her own. Her friend offered to hook her up with better pay for her work.

After Thomas went home, Neville put off doing his homework some more and decided to try jumping rope instead. He discovered that he really likes doing Fitness activities.

Another day, another chance card for Luey who was doing quite well in the Showbiz career.

That day, he and Misty both came home with promotions. Luey’s put him at the top of the Showbiz career after only a relatively short time working in it. This is likely due to the fact that he was getting a lot more attention with the Druffs than he probably would have at Crystal Ball’s house, since he would have had to compete with his parents and littermates there for someone to train him.

As the days progressed, Norris grew up to be a child. Unfortunately, his parents had been so busy with their jobs, his brothers, and Luey, that he didn’t learn all of his toddler skills before he transitioned. He had received plenty of attention still, however, so he still grew up well.

Dan caught the flu from one of his patients at the hospital, but a bowl of comfort soup that night helped him get over it quickly before he’d passed it on to Misty or his sons.

Neville frequently played chess with Nathan since they were both trying to raise their Logic as much as possible so they could get good scholarships for college one day. One night the Games lot representative came and issued him his own membership to the secret lot.

Even though he was at the top of his career now, Nathan still worked at teaching Luey new tricks. Norris also took an interest in Luey, though mostly as a playmate.

On her day off, Misty was feeling a bit cooped up in the house, so she decided to go shopping, and perhaps meet some more of the townsfolk. She tried talking to Maura Midlock, but Maura wasn’t very interested in talking to her.

After giving up on trying to have a conversation with Maura, she met Sue Shi and chatted with her awhile while Sue’s son Terrance listened in.

Neville went outside to jump rope every chance he got, and it wasn’t long before he was offered a membership to the Platinum Gym.

Later, his friend Luke Warm came by for a visit. Though Luke was a zombie, he’d been quite nurturing in helping raise both Nathan and Neville when they were little and the family had still been living with Bud Wieser and Luke.

By the end of the week, Neville had grown enough that he transitioned to being a teenager. Since the family wasn’t really big on birthday parties, he did so without much fanfare in the backyard one night while taking the kitchen scraps out to the composter.

He decided that he wanted to have a big family of his own one day – and that he also wanted to explore the myriad possibilities inherent in Grilled Cheese sandwiches.

Not to be outdone by his little brother, Nathan decided on a secondary aspiration finally as well. He decided that having a lot of friends would be cool.

And thus another week came to an end at the Druff household. All had settled in nicely to their new home, though they still had many things to accomplish. The boys still had skills to work on and scholarships to earn. Misty was still working hard to get to the top of her career, and Dan was contemplating a career change. If only he could find time to do some job hunting…or to plant some things in the lovely greenhouse they had in the backyard. Perhaps one day he would.

*********************************************************

Author’s Notes:My apologies to those who had been following my blog here in the past for the long hiatus. Unfortunately, shortly after playing the Druff household last August I found myself suddenly burnt out on playing the game and blogging. And so their pictures have languished on my hard drive for months now, waiting for me to find the time and motivation to write their story. I’ll apologize also for the rather sketchy text in this update, but it’s been so long since I actually played the lot for this update that I don’t really remember what happened, other than not a lot did happen really. Just ordinary day-to-day sim life for the most part. Luckily I’d taken plenty of screenshots while I was playing, so I did my best to piece together the week’s story from those.

I hope to get back into Challengeville to keep the stories going, though unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time to play or to blog these days. They’re calling to me more and more as time goes on though, so hopefully I can get my feet wet with one of the families here again soon. Probably the Roper family next, though I’m still contemplating various options of how to proceed with the neighborhood, whether to keep going in the Prosperity rounds fashion that I have been and work through all the many households in the neighborhood (there are a great many that haven’t been seen yet in the blog), or to switch over to working on the various TSR challenge lots that are in the ‘hood to play those challenges out before I worry about continuing with the neighborhood-wide time progression. If any of you have any thoughts about what you’d like to see here, leave a comment, and I’ll take it under consideration. Until such time as I make it back here with another entry, however, take care all, and happy Simming.